30% of Teens Meet Online 'Friends' Offline: Study

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Nearly a third of teenage girls have met people offline after
becoming online friends, according to a new study. In many cases
the identity of that online character was not fully confirmed
before the teens set up a real-life meet-up.

In addition, one in 10 experienced some form of exploitation —
ranging from creepy sexual advances to rape — during that offline
interaction.

The study, published today (Jan. 14) in the journal Pediatrics,
looked at teenage girls, half of whom had been abused in some way
in real life. Those who faced abuse or neglect were likelier to
exhibit "high risk" online behavior, such as having racy social
media profiles or accepting online sexual advances. Risky online
behavior, in turn, was tied to meeting Internet "friends"
offline.

But because the study included a large number of at-risk youth,
some experts doubt those numbers apply to the general population.

Teenagers may first meet a friend-of-a-friend online and meet
face-to-face later, but complete strangers are a different story,
said Parry Aftab, an Internet privacy lawyer who runs
WiredSafety.org. [ Adolescent
Angst: 10 Facts About the Teen Brain ]

"Straight strangers? No way. I just don't see that as happening.
The kids have gotten very sophisticated about this issue," Aftab
said.

Janis Wolak, a senior researcher at the Crimes against Children
Research Center, agrees. In general population surveys, Wolak has
found that very few teens meet online strangers in person. And
from that subset, so few are
sexually assaulted that scientists can't draw meaningful
statistics, she said.

To test that observation, she and her colleagues studied 130
girls ages 14 to 17 who had seen Child Protective Services for
sexual and
physical abuse and neglect, as well as 125 demographically
similar teenagers with no abuse history. The girls answered
questions about online behavior. A year later, Noll asked how
many of the girls had met an Internet friend offline.

Thirty percent of girls (both abused and not) reported an
in-person encounter with someone they first met online. About 10
percent of the girls experienced something negative — often
creepy sexual overtures or intimidation during that meet-up. Only
one prosecuted rape occurred as a result of the offline meetings,
Noll said.

Consistent with her anecdotal experience, abused teens were
likelier than non-abused teens to have racy social media profiles
or report fielding sexual advances from strangers — behaviors
that were separately tied to meeting strangers offline.

Mitigating risk

While the findings are disturbing, the team also found that
high-quality parental relationships and open communication could
reduce the risk that teens would meet online friends in the real
world. Past research has found
parents are in the dark about what their teenagers are doing
online, with 70 percent of teens hiding some of their online
behavior from parents, including accessing porn or violent
content online and pirating music or movies online.